THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT OF MONGOLIA, PUBLIC RELATIONS & COMMUNICATIONS DIVISION

www.president.mn

2012-11-14

Speech by Tsakhiagiin ELBEGDORJ, President of Mongolia, at a Solemn Assembly, dedicated to the 850th Anniversary of Birth of Chinggis Khaan

Ulaanbaatar
State Palace

Temuujin-Chinggis is the Greatest Pride of us, the Mongols

My dear fellow countrymen, Ladies and Gentlemen,

The State and the people of Mongolia have assembled today solemnly to celebrate the birthday of our great Khaan.
Eight hundred and fifty years ago, the great forefather of us, the Mongols, was born.
The earth has seen human births as numerous as grains of sand, and who’d argue it’s not true.
Yet, there are not many who had left indelible footprint on the soil and molded their fame.
Of these few, our forefather the Great Lord Chinggis Khaan stands out expressly.
There is virtually no one on earth who didn’t hear of his name.

Heaven-sheltered Great Khaan Chinggis was not born out of void.
We was born of Mongol life.
Fed by the waters of Kherlen river, riding his horses, he worshipped his land and the Sky.
Listening to his mother, roaming in the steppe packing his ger, and feeding and raising his younger siblings.
He knew the value of a bowl of bird-cherries.
Accruing everything his fathers and forefathers left in him, he built up his strength.
Temuujin, grew up and distinguished out amidst the life-soaking miseries and challenges.
It was to get back his stolen light-bay horses that he raised his bow for the first time.
It was to save his bride Burte that he started his first war.

Dear friends,
From his early childhood, did Chinggis Khaan realize that “one’s physical body is frail, but one’s wisdom is eternal”.
The saddle he sat on was not carried to us.
But Mongolia he raised is here, in us.
His standing script is here, in us. (applause)
His horse whip has not withstood the time,
But the state he crafted is here, with us.
His decrees are hear, for us. (applause)
Chinggis Khaan did not collect gold, money.
He was collecting people’s minds, winning hearts.
He is absent among us, but his wisdom lives on.

Mother Uelun once appraised Chinggis Khaan as “a learned Temuujin”.
This Queen highly esteemed the power of mind, the wisdom.
Chinggis Khaan valued knowledge, skills, harmony, the good and the beautiful.
Acceptive of right, attentive to other’s words, he was equally lenient to both a praise and a reproach.
Temuujin, sharp as the edge of his sword, would briskly grasp even the smallest gist glittering in the words of a captive slave. (applause)

Chinggis honored law in his State.
He esteemed military art, esteemed that rule and discipline were an order in his army.
He honored his people to uphold dignity.
A man comes to this world crying, but has to live upholding rules.
He was a man who deeply realized that the justice begins and consolidates with equality of law, and not with the distinctions between the people.
He was a man who knew that the good laws and rules lived longer than fancy palaces. (applause)
Though he built the largest on earth empire, Chinggis Khaan had never rushed to build statues to himself.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
No one before or after Chinggis Khaan had ever created as large, as great and as capacious a state as as the one he had built. Yet, Chinggis Khaan started the big from the small.
He began his colossal effort to build his state by building up himself and his home first.
He had risen and stood out amidst the strife and discord among the many tribes, striken by the tides of harsh time.

He saw that the savior of the Mongol people was to unite the fractioned and dissipated country.
He knew that otherwise Mongolia would have collapsed.
He honored unity and harmony at home, and dismissed internal disaccord perpetuated by external provocations.
And he did it.
He did manage to establish the empire, a statehood, a state under rule of law. (applause)

Dear Mongolians,
Chinggis Khaan recognized the state rule as the rule of law.
Mongols are a people who honor tradition at home, and law outside of home. (applause)
We are the citizens of a State ruled by Law.
We are children born to mothers and fathers of high dignity and integrity.
We have profoundly respected our seniors, and heartily taken care of our youngsters.
We say, we are born under the Tengri, the Blue Sky and live under the Law.
In our bones, rules and orders, we are the children of the Khaan of Law. (applause)
We Mongols say of ourselves as “the people of order destined to eat bone meat”.
What this means is that a Mongol man is ruled by law and presided by traditions and custom.
We have a tradition to call a man, a state, a statesman who follow law as “good”.

Chinggis Khaan attributed the State as Golden, A Golden State.
The Great Khaan used to reiterate “If the Golden State is Firmly Upheld, a Solid Fame Would Arrive”.
Firmly upholding the Golden State means an unwavering and equal adherence to the laws of the State.
In modern language, it’s about equality in front of law – laws must be upheld both by an ordinary citizen, and by a state’s dignitary.
Both rich and poor obey the law, that’s what it means.
If laws are breached, both an unmanageble official and a regular citizen should bear the responsibility, this is what it means. (applause)
A man must answer for his deeds.
The State should account for its actions.
This is called Justice.
The same ordinance was in place in Chingis’s times as well.
And it must prevail today too.
Such an established good order is known as a worth and value of the humankind.

The founding principle of a State is fair application of law.
This principles was unwaveringly upheld by our fathers and forefathers.
They knew, a State, a Home built on law was firm and strong.
To their bones and flesh, they knew that the path, the roadmap for any man, any State, any country to follow was Law.
And that is why they would have chosen to have their bones broken than their honor discredited.
They would have chosen to die than to breach a Law.

Chinggis Khaan said “If my body dies, let it die, but never let my country die”.
In these words, the Great Khaan decreed for the State to flourish forever, even though one’s physical being perishes.
Statehood and security meant Laws and their Enforcement for Chinggis Khaan.
This is a profound teaching which embodies the great genius of Chinggis Khaan.
This is the Great Khaan’s proliferation of the truth that the most enduring legacies, behind all born, on which a Statehood lives on are Rule of Law and Order.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
The world shrank in Chinggis Khaan’s times.
It did indeed shrink to its half.
Chinggis Khaan let the mankind sense that the world has limits. (applause)
Chinggis Khaan was a man to put the world back within its boundaries.
Chinggis Khaan saw the beauty of the world not just in spacial terms.
He endeavored to govern the world by rule and order, by peace and harmony.
He knew that the Rule and Order would make room for Peace and Harmony.
For him, a war was a means of making peace. (applause)

The great Russian scholar Lev Gumilev reasoned Chinggis Khaan’s waging wars by a right to mend.
If trouble was sought by others, the Great Khaan would resort to his powers.
Mongolians didn’t wage a war without a reason.
They fought wars to pacify the trouble and establish the right.
But Mongols didn’t only fight wars.
They would stay behind in the places they fought.
Historical accounts have enough evidences to prove that it was not an easy mission to correct the wrong, to soften the hard.

Mongols used to teach others that a State is built by the people.
They would convene assemblies, the Ikh Khuraldai, to discuss great missions, great agendas.
Mongols made others to feel that a source, a foundation of a good State is a Good Law.
They used to introduce and maintain the Ikh Zasag Code of Law in every place they went and lived.
The Mongol Empire had laws to pursue, and the judges to judge.
The Mongol Empire had sustaining and firm domestic and foreign policies, the sacred policy of golden tether.
Had postal stations with postmen on swift-hoofed horses.

The Mongol Empire had a military unit of Aravts, a ten-men cell of the Army, and an administrative structure based on Tumt, a cluster of ten thousand men.
An Aravt, as tight and united as one man, was stronger than a larger group of men.
They knew that a hundred people as tight as 10, and a thousand as tight as hundred, and a ten-thousand as tight as a thousand were the foundation of the nation.
Mongols around the world established communication, started horse-stations, set taxes, made people wear decent clothing, use paper money, let study astronomy, promoted science, wrote books, built schools, hospitals and temples.

Chinggis Khaan believed more in the power of mind than in the power of one’s physical body. (applause)
He would say:”Win the mind, so the body won’t roam any far”.
He respected people’s faith and religion.
Even if the saints are different and the readings chanted are not similar, if and once one’s faith and religion is equally treated, this would mean Justice. Chinggis Khaan knew that this would lead to harmony and peace in mind.

Dear friends,
Chinggis Khaan’s time was not only the time of wars, ruins and aggression.
A war was a discovery, a new finding. A finding to open up the closed, congealed and frozen.
A war was a way to stop attrocities and cruelty, a means to support and promote the good and progressive.
It was the time when new lands, new civilizations were found, and new orders established.
He, in its real sense, woke up, revived and connected the East and the West.
He united scattered people and assembled fractioned countries.

Chinggis Khaan found his most valuable assets - his most faithful friends in the battle fields.
He taught others that wars and strifes could be pacified with rule and order.
For him, a war was a way to govern and chastise, to establish and set order.
He resorted to this means both at home and foreign lands.
He had been learning the art of governing men, governing the State in those wars which he fought by the turn of fate.
He was accumulating and also spreading the wisdom to govern a country.
The wisdom Chinggis Khaan earned throughout his life can be used by people of not just a single time or generation; instead his wisdom can feed the humankind through millennia, and that’s why it is a sanctuary of cause and effect. (applause)

Temuujin didn’t find this friends and andas from fun and pleasure.
He found his true friends and aides in hardships and miseries.
Boorchi, Mukhulai, Zelme, Subeeday were his good friends, with whom Chinggis Khaan shared pains and misfortunes.
A good Khaan needs a good friend.
A good State needs a good servant. (applause)
Chinggis Khaan sought people faithful, in fact, not to the Khaan, but to the State, to the people.
He supported not those who waited down the road, but those who were faithful to the principle.
Chinggis Khaan valued earnesty and tenacity and detested hypocrites and double-dealers.
He aligned with men who were equal in thoughts, ideas and spirit, and not the ones who pleased and praised him. (applause)
He solemnly followed the customs of his forefathers, and never forgot the help of others.
He was a man who cared for those in need, punished who wronged and pardoned those who meant no ill.

My dear fellow citizens,
As if told and taught by the Blue Sky, Chinggis Khaan could shrewdly tell the good apart from the bad.
He had a light in his eyes, skills in his body and wisdom in his mind.
Chinggis Khaan perfectly mastered the five essential wisdoms, and was indeed, the finest of men.
He was the one to befriend with the good people and to settle in good places.
He both scattered and assembled.
He collected the only best and the only finest.
And he left all his best for Mongolia. (applause)
In the quality of a Mongol man, in the beauty of Mongol land.
In the dignity of the Mongol State, in the way of Mongol life.
Left in decrees, teaching, in his credo and testaments.
He left them in the Dignity and Honor, Glory and History of Mongolia.

The blue-spotted great grand children of the Lord Chinggis Khaan are being born to their fathers and mothers, bringing joy and happiness.
The blessing for Mongols to grow more is carrying on. (applause)
Mongols are uniting in the spirit to advance and prosper our country.
The State, established by Chinggis, with its seal, Sulde, the coat of arms and the owners of the country are flourishing. (applause)
The State and the people of Mongolia join altogether in saluting our blessing to our great Khaan in the turn of the nineth century of establishment of the Great Mongol Empire.

In every herd of a Mongolian nomad, the short chestnut horses that Chinggis Khaan’s warriors rode are roaming serenely.
The felt ger, the home where Chinggis Khaan was born, rests humbly with its hearth burning warm; with the sunrays lighting up the life inside through its sun-shaped top every morning.
The mother, who he cherished so dearly, lives on with every Mongolian heart, with every Mongolian family.
The Deel Chinggis wore, the letters he wrote, the language he spoke are alive in us.
The Great White Banner and the Black Coat of Arms of Chinggis are to this date revered by the Mongol people and the Mongolian soldiers.
To this date, the Rule of Law and Justice Chinggis Khaan established are honored highly by the Mongolian State. (applause)

Dear Mongolians,
The Great Lord Chinggis Khaan is the supreme sanctity for the Mongolian nation to dwell in.
Chinggis Khaan was not a reincarnation.
Chinggis Khaan was a Mongolian, born with flesh and bones.
What makes us to glorify Chinggis Khaan as the pride of our nation!
That Mongol boy, born at the spring of Onon, Kherlen and Tuul, was the man to embody the pride of the nation in himself, to enrich it and make it live on.
National Pride is a pride crafted by people, engrossed in their entity and lived on in the people.

The history Chinggis Khaan authored is a great one, an indelible account of records.
The world history is inseparable from the history of Chinggis Khaan.
Philippe le Bel of France, Pope of Rome, Russian kings, Chinese dao, European kingdoms, Indian moguls, Arabian sultanates maintained communication with Chinggis Khaan, his followers and children.
It is perhaps the will of the Tengri, the Blue Sky that this history is indelible and fresh.

The history has known great men, the names of whom are inscribed in the hearts and minds of generations of peoples.
The Great Atilla, Julius Caesar, Alexander of Macedon, Christopher Columbus, Napolean Bonaparte.
Yet all of them lack the fate to step afore Chinggis Khaan, the Man of the Millennium.
The man who shrunk the world to its half, a man who acquainted the world with Rule and Order. A man who made the humankind recognize the power of a human being and the values of Statehood.
Indeed. The envoy of the Tengri, the Blue Sky, our Khaan – Temuujin, the Chinggis Khaan is our supreme, Khaan pride. (applause)

Some modern day wise men increasingly agree on Chinggis Khaan’s being the founder of the modern world.
It is not accidental that the Mongol Khaans were viewed as the toughest as well as the most intelligent where ever they ruled.
It is becoming increasingly evident that they left the most enduring orders, values and wisdom.
This illustrates how rich and fertile are Mongolia’s culture and traditions, and how inexhaustible are these assets. (applause)

Dear friends,
Of the Mongols, there are some who diligently safeguarded Chinggis Khaan’s State, and there are some who failed.
There are some who abused his name and smashed rule of law.
There were times in our past that the Mongols were scared to pronounce his name, praise him, celebrate his birthday, and would fall victims of punishment if those acts were attempted.
Nonetheless, like a sharp golden arrowhead amidst numerous other pikes Chinggis Khaan penetrated and prevailed through times.
He dwells in Mongol life, in the rules and order of the Mongol State.
In Mongols’ supreme traditions, culture and custom.
Therefore, one who wishes to know Mongolia, know Chinggis.
One who wishes to know Chinggis, know Mongolia. (applause)

The cultural and historical heritage of Chinggis Khaan and his descendants are undepletable for the intellectual pursuits of a modern man.
Our Khaan made the world to realize that harmonic Statehood and intellectual heritage do exist.
A big power has big fortunes, and big misfortunes.
One must have a great power of will in order to be able to rule from where the sun rises to where it sits.
And it is more so to govern an empire power.
That power of will rests not in the army, not in the roads, not in the money
That power of will was cast and molded in the rule of law, culture and order, origins of which had been laid in in the Hun State. (applause)
Honey-tongue appraisal won’t suit Chinggis Khaan.
The time itself talks for him.
The name of Chinggis Khaan was made eternal more for the great laws and orders he established than by the size of lands to conquired.

My dear countrymen, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Chinggis Khaan did believe in the might of the Tengri, the Eternal Blue Sky.
And therefore, the great culture, peace, development and prosperity of the State he established flourishes eternally. These values remain the dream of earth dwellers addressed to the Tengri, the Blue Sky.
It is not a mundane fortune for us on earth to establish big states and govern to balance up the good and bad.
This is a destiny of a man blessed by the Tengri, the Blue Sky, to serve to the good of the peoples. (applause)
This is a mission to be aspired and achieved by those men who can confer the Tengri order equally to all on earth and accomplish it.
And this is not a trade of someone who, enslaved by his own greed and want, sits on top of Law and keeps others low below.
The Tengri Order, put in our modern language, is Law and its equal application to all.

Chinggis Khaan was a man who withstood and sustained over the miseries of life on earth, and is a man of Tengri identity.
It was not important for him what times he lived in. It didn’t matter for him.
He didn’t complain about his time, he didn’t spite the time he lived in.
He survived through multiple challenges, bitter tests, hatred and jealosy.
He would penetrate through numerous walls of castles and palaces.
Vastness of lands, deepness of waters and highness of mountains were no barriers for Chinggis Khaan. He disregarded pain and miseries.

To mend and rectify, he reached the lands he wished to reach and did what he ought to do.
Like a resilient, life-saving simple grass feeds the Mongol soil, he simply chose to do and accomplish all that would feed and nurture the people and the State.

Mongols are believed to be Blessed by Tengri, the Blue Sky. Mongols are believed to have the Tengri-blessed fate.
I do believe in this fate of us.
Because the Tengri-blessed Chinggis Khaan was born from us, the Mongols. (applause)
The Tengri bestowed upon us its blessing.
It made us be born on this Mongol soil.
To me, the Tengri Fate is a precious destiny with legacies to safeguard more than one’s life, with rights and responsibilities to uphold and carry on. This is a fate to be born a Mongolian. (applause)

I do believe.
I do believe that though the bodies of our forefathers rest in soil, their souls and wisdom live in the Tengri.
I do believe that our forefathers are looking upon us and keeping us, their children, safe and sound.
Our forefathers were the man, who suppressing their own will, were enforcing the Tengri orders on earth.
And that is why they were blessed by the Tengri.

May my Tengri-blessed Mongolian people dwell eternally. May our Heavenly Father – the Great Lord Chinggis Khaan dwell eternally. (applause)

November 14, 2012
* Edited upon delivery with additions of omissions due to technical reasons.